


It's the Great Pumpkin, Gerard Way

by pyrchance



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Gen, Halloween, Hurt/Comfort, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Pre-Slash, Scarecrow!Frank
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:36:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27317125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyrchance/pseuds/pyrchance
Summary: When Gerard straightens back up again, suddenly immensely sympathetic of Bilbo’s desire to dodge the draft of any adventures, the scarecrow is laughing at him.Gerard wants to have never thought that sentence. He wants to have thought:someone was laughing at him.He wants to have some sort of doubt. Some room for ambiguity. But no.-Gerard carries two things in his pockets: a lighter and chip for 90 days. He wishes the talking scarecrow was his biggest problem.
Relationships: Frank Iero & Gerard Way, Gerard Way & Mikey Way
Comments: 18
Kudos: 33
Collections: My Trick or Treat Romance





	It's the Great Pumpkin, Gerard Way

**Author's Note:**

> My prompt was pumpkin patch. So this...kind of fits.

Gerard realizes he’s been duped about three steps out of his mom’s station wagon and into the dirt parking lot. If Mikey were here, he would have warned Gerard that pumpkin patch was code for farm, but Mikey is not here. Mikey is back in the city working like a normal twenty-something on a Tuesday at noon. Gerard is the one left watching dust spit up on his shoes as his mom and dad stroll forward and pretend not to be waiting on him and his reaction.

It’s hard work trying to remember how to be a functioning adult again. Gerard screws down the lid on all his budding desires to just sit and wait in the car and makes himself look around.

“Wow,” he says with feigned interest. “I had no idea this place existed. It’s great.”

A smile melts across his mom’s lips, relieved. “Oh good. I just knew you’d love it. You’ve always been such a Halloween kid. Just look at all this. This place practically screams your name. ”

Gerard _is_ looking. That’s sort of the problem. He’s noticing the corn maze and the rows of pumpkins and the booths hawking homemade candles and apple cider and _hard_ apple cider and is feeling his mouth water.

“It’s great,” he says again, pointedly dragging his eyes to the ground. “Great idea, Mom.”

“Pick out anything you’d like,” she adds, dragging his dad forward toward a booth of kitschy jewelry. “And get something for your brother. My treat!”

It’s like he’s eight years old again. Eight years old and handed an allowance for the first time. And the sad thing? His mom isn’t even wrong. The only thing left in his pockets is a chip that took him ninety days to earn.

He shoves his hands into his pockets and keeps his eyes to the ground. To the pumpkin patch he goes.

*

Gerard walks into the corn maze intending to get throughly lost. He doesn’t imagine it will take much time for his parents to get bored of this place. Once the initial sheen wears off there really isn’t much to look at besides the obvious. Quaint is just a synonym for boring.

The corn is surprisingly thick when he steps inside of it. It towers over his head, giving the illusion of walls and hallways. He takes this as a good sign and proceeds to walk doggedly forward, head down, until he’s broken through the line of families clogging up the entrance and turned enough times he might generously be considered lost. He spots a few benches and photo ops as he wanders around and resolves to find a deserted one for himself to it wait out until his parents are done.

After just a few more minutes of turning around at the sight of any small children, he finally spies a few empty hay bales stacked in the back of a dead end. They’re positioned artfully under a scarecrow, which sags under the weight of a bulbous pumpkin head. The scarecrow has a face carved with crosses for eyes and a sharp, leering grin. Considering it even gives Gerard a moment of the heebies he sort of gets why families chose to pass on this one.

Gerard edges closer, pulls out his smokes, and finally flops down on a hay bale. One cigarette and he’ll go find his parents. Maybe two. He’s resisted temptation so far. He’s allowed to smoke.

“You’re one ugly motherfucker,” Gerard says, squinting up at the scarecrow as he raises his lighter to the end of his smoke.

His lighter burns. The metal sears his hand. Gerard hisses, dropping the lighter onto the ground and stomping it with his foot. There’s no flame though. There’s not even smoke. When Gerard opens his palm and looks down there is a shiny red burn right through his lifeline.

“What the fuck?” Gerard gasps, and bends down to poke at his lighter. It’s a metal thing he bought when he turned eighteen and couldn’t quite believe he’d made it. The lighter is perfectly cool to his touch though. Like the One Ring of Power. A chill races down his neck.

When he straightens back up again, suddenly immensely sympathetic of Bilbo’s desire to dodge the draft of any adventures, the scarecrow is laughing at him.

Gerard wants to have never thought that sentence. He wants to have thought: _someone was laughing at him_. He wants to have some sort of doubt. Some room for ambiguity. But no.

The scarecrow’s mouth is moving and its straw body is shaking and there is no one in this corner of the maze but Gerard and the sentient yard decoration.

“I’m hallucinating,” Gerard says. His lighter slips through his fingers. “Oh fuck. I’m hallucinating. You’re not real.”

“I ain’t got no strings on me,” the scarecrow cackles. “I’m a real boy, asshole.”

Its gloved fingers throw out jazz hands. There are tiny little bones stitched on its fingers.

“Fuck,” says Gerard. He’s patting down his jacket except all his jacket has is smokes and that stupid chip and nothing else. That’s what he’d agreed to. Nothing stronger than nicotine means no prescriptions in his pockets, not even the no fun kind. Not even the kind that stop him from seeing crazy fucking hallucinations. “Fuck. Holy fuck. Shit shit shit.”

“I’m real, you rude fuck,” the scarecrow jeers and its whole pumpkin head turns to stare as Gerard stumbles backwards. 

“You’re not,” says Gerard. He falls on his ass, scooting backward. His lighter gets lost somewhere in the hay as he’s shaking and shaking his head. “You’re not. You’re not.”

“But I am.” The scarecrow’s shadow seems to stretch darker, eating at Gerard’s heels as it leans forward, looming and crooked. Its jagged mouth is terrible and wide. “Boo!”

*

“Gerard! Gerard! Don, stop the car! Gerard, honey!”

Gerard is walking down the highway. He’s walking down the highway and the gravel crunches under his shoes and the sun is hot on his neck. His skin seems to crackles when his mom pulls him in.

“Oh God! We were so worried!”

She’s patting down his arms and Gerard is suddenly aware again that he has arms and legs and a whole body the aches. He is aware of himself being pushed into the backseat of his father’s station wagon and of the rumble of the engine beneath him.

“Where did you go?” his mom demands. “Gerard, honey, what happened?”

But Gerard just shakes his head. He just barely came back to himself. How does she expect him to say it?

He just stares down at the dirty hands in his lap and doesn’t even try to explain. Better to keep his eyes where they can’t hurt him. Better to shut them entirely.

So he leans his forehead against the window and does just that.

*

Gerard wakes up to a bone-dry tongue and Mikey sitting on the edge of his bed. Mikey passes him two aspirins and a glass of water when he groans, and watches him intently until Gerard has downed half the glass.

“Mom called,” Mikey says, taking the glass back out of Gerard’s hands and setting it on the floor. This leaves Gerard with nothing to hide behind, just twitchy fingers. “She says you took off.”

“I’m clean,” he says, as much to assure Mikey as himself.

“She says they found you walking down the highway by yourself.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I know.” Gerard sits up, pulling the blankets up as he does, cold. “I freaked. I’m sorry. But I am sober.”

The sad thing is Gerard remembers everything that happened yesterday. If he were black out drunk like he knows his family expects, he wouldn’t have spent all of last night trying to force the scarecrow’s grinning, _speaking_ mouth out of his head. He wouldn’t have reached for his cigarettes as he paced his room, and then had a second freak out because his lighter was gone. Just gone. Left behind in the maze. And then he wouldn’t have had to walk in on his mom and dad whispering in the kitchen as he went upstairs to dig through the junk drawer for a spare.

Mikey just looks at him. Gerard used to fear that after everything he’d put him through, Mikey would stop looking at him—looking _to_ him—as his big brother. But that’s never happened. It takes a few seconds longer than it used to maybe, but Mikey still nods and relaxes and stares expectantly at Gerard like there was never any doubt that Gerard was telling the truth.

“Okay. So what happened?”

Gerard hesitates. “It’s going to sound weird.”

“You’re weird,” says Mikey, nudging their knees together. “Hey. This is me. Tell me what happened.”

And the thing about being a big brother is that Gerard has never once stopped trying to give Mikey everything he’s ever wanted. Even the hard stuff like the truth.

“Okay, so.” Gerard breathes out. He spreads hands out, and Mikey perks up, knowing a good story is coming. Gerard soaks in the warmth of that trust. “So, you know how pumpkin patch really means farm, yeah? Right, so I guess Mom heard about this place from one of the nail salon ladies…”

*

“You have to go back,” says Mikey when Gerard’s story is finished. He’s sitting cross-legged at the end of Gerard’s bed, eyes wide and head cocked, exactly like he used to when he was three and listening to Gerard recite comic books like gospel.

“No way.” Gerard drops the hands he’d been waving and tangles them in his blanket. “It was fucking creepy. I’m not going back there.”

“I’ll come with you. Come on, Gee. I want to see it.”

“I am not letting you walk into some cabin in the woods. We’re not those people, Mikey. I’ve raised you better than that. We’ve watched enough horror movies to know not to do that.”

“Don’t you want to prove that it really happened?” Mikey asks, leaning forward. “Come on. Come on. We’re going.”

“No, Mikey. No fucking way.”

“If you don’t go, you know I’ll just make Pete take me anyway.”

Gerard groans. Pete is perhaps not Gerard’s favorite person, as much as he seems to be one of Mikey’s. He’s just so…Pete. Sometimes, Gerard doesn’t even know how he fits in with Mikey when Pete is around.

“This is a terrible idea,” he announces and shoves a finger into the smirk that immediately blossoms on Mikey’s face. “We’re bringing weapons. And fire. And we’re doing this in the daylight or not at all. _And_ you’re driving.”

“You just found the great magic pumpkin, Gerard Way. This is an _awesome_ idea.”

*

Despite Mikey’s insistance, it takes almost a week of Gerard dutifully attending both morning and evening meetings until things settle enough with his parents for Gerard to leave the house. He feels bad about scaring them, especially his mom, but it’s hard not to feel like running away again when Mikey pulls his car off the highway and into the pumpkin patch.

“Huh,” says Mikey, squinting out the front window as family after family troop past the nose of his car. “I dunno, Gee. This place seems more like Disneyland than Camp Crystal Lake.”

“Let’s just do this,” Gerard says, and doesn’t let Mikey drag another word out of him until they’re parked and trudging along through the crowd towards the corn maze.

“We should get pumpkins,” Mikey notes as they pass by the main attraction.

Gerard shudders, remembering the scarecrow’s terrible grin. “I am never carving one of those things again.”

It’s the weekend before Halloween. They should have expected this place to be overrun. Gerard and Mikey have to queue up before the entrance to the maze before a bored teenager waves them in. Of course, it’s only once they’re in that it dawn on either of them that they’re in a _maze_.

“We’ve definitely been here before,” Gerard says, arms crossed as he stumbles behind Mikey through another wrong turn.

Mikey stops in his tracks and gives a bitch face right back. “Then you lead. You’re the one that’s done this before.”

“It’s not like I just know where he’s at,” Gerard grumbles, but dutifully starts walking. “I was running away.”

Mikey eyes alight in intrigue. “So it’s a _he_.”

Gerard has clearly made mistakes when it came to Mikey’s horror movie education.

The minute they turn the right corner, Gerard knows it. The biggest hint is the sudden drop in noise. What had previously been an overrun tourist attraction, full of sticky children and harassed parents, empties into a conspicuously deserted corridor. Gerard hisses when he spots the scarecrow still standing at the end.

It’s exactly as sinister as Gerard’s nightmares remembered. Skeleton gloves spread wide, limbs stuck in a scarecrow’s cruxifixction, the jack-o-lantern head huge and staring.

“Holy shit,” Mikey whispers, edging up behind Gerard’s back. “That thing is fucking creepy.”

“Don’t insult it,” hisses Gerard, nervous. “Okay. So there he is. I wasn’t lying. Let’s go.”

Mikey just stares down the corridor intently. He takes one step towards forward before Gerard slams a hand across his chest. “Don’t! Mikey, I’m serious.”

“I want to see it move. Come on. It’s gotta be a trick, right? Someone was messing with you.”

“No one was here, Mikey,” Gerard says. He grabs at Mikey’s again, but Mikey shakes him off. Somehow, despite every instinct in him screaming against it, Gerard finds himself trailing after his baby brother and up to the demon scarecrow for a second time.

Everything is very quiet.

The scarecrow is posted on a pole. It’s wearing hole-ridden Chucks that don’t touch the ground and a dirt encrusted denim jacket. It doesn’t move as they approach, but it doesn’t have to. Gerard can _feel_ its attention.

Mikey gets way too close for Gerard’s comfort, peering up at the thing. It’s shorter than Gerard remembers. Mikey’s almost eye-level with it even though the scarecrow is dangling from the stake.

“I wonder how they did it,” Mikey says, craning his neck to look around the back. “I thought for sure there’d be a speaker back here.”

Gerard winces. His eyes haven’t left the scarecrow’s face. He swears the crossed-out eyes haven’t left his either.

“There was nobody here, Mikey. Seriously can we just go now?”

Mikey steps around the scarecrow, looking down at the stacked bales of hay. “I guess someone could have been hiding back here. Or maybe just on the other side of the corn. You might not have seen them if you weren’t paying attention. Teenagers are kind of shits.”

Gerard’s attention is finally pulled away from the scarecrow. “You don’t believe me,” Gerard realizes.

Mikey straightens, turning around immediately. “I believe you,” he says. “I believe that it scared you. I just think, maybe, it had a little help.”

Gerard knows exactly what Mikey is saying.

He is, quiet suddenly, much more afraid of something other than the stupid scarecrow.

“I’ll prove it,” Gerard decides. Mikey jumps out of his way as Gerard marches forward, stalking up to the scarecrow and getting right up in its face. He’s not imagining the way the scarecrow is glaring at him. He’s not.

“Talk,” Gerard demands.

“Gee…”

Gerard waves Mikey away. He points a finger at the scarecrow. “Come on, you stupid ugly fuck. You know you want to. I’m back. Let me have it.”

The scarecrow’s features never change. It’s a glorified pumpkin on a stick.

Except, _except_ , Gerard swears he can see the curl of its grin inch higher.

“Move, you asshole,” snarls Gerard, reaching out and pushing its chest. The pole shudders. The jack-o-lantern’s head bobs up and down like its laughing. It doesn’t make a sound.

“Gerard!” snaps Mikey.

“He’s just fucking with us.” Gerard pushes the scarecrow again. Mikey grabs his arm. When Gerard looks back, Mikey’s face is pale, his lips pressed thinly together.

“This isn’t funny anymore.”

“It’s not a joke, Mikey,” Gerard says, but he’s deflating, growing uncertain. “You believe me right? You said you believed me.”

“I do. I do. But you’ve gotta tell me, Gee,” says Mikey, sounding serious and scared in a way Gerard hasn’t heard since his last hospital trip. “You’ve gotta tell me if you’ve taken something. It’s—It’s _okay_. I’m not mad. If you fell off the wagon, if you made a mistake, we can fix it.”

“Mikey,” says Gerard, drawing back. “Mikey, no. I _swear_.”

Mikey is shaking his head. “It’s okay, but you’ve got to tell me this time, Gee. I can’t do this in the dark again.”

“I haven’t,” says Gerard. “I swear I haven’t. I’m sober. I swear. I swear to god, Mikey.”

And Mikey, thank god, meets his eyes and slowly nods and doesn’t stop holding Gerard’s hand. “Okay. Okay, Gee. I believe you.” His eyes flicker to the scarecrow Gerard’s forgotten about and darken. “Let’s just…get out of here. Obviously, it was some kind of prank gone wrong. You’ve—you’ve always been a sucker for stuff like that.”

“Right,” says Gerard, bobbing his head. “Right. Yeah.”

And the out is right there. Mikey is holding open the exit door and waving him through.

But so is the scarecrow.

He stares at it all the time that Mikey tugs him out of the corridor.

And he swears, at the last second, the scarecrow winks.

*

Mikey drives him to his meeting that night, all the way through traffic to the church downtown. Gerard usually walks, or takes the train, but he isn’t surprised to see Mikey’s car still idling on the curb sixty minutes after Gerard goes in.

He sighs as he climbs in, shoving his fingers against the heating vents as Mikey silently puts his phone away and pulls them into the street.

“It’s okay,” Gerard says. “I’m okay. You don’t need to worry.”

“I always worry,” sighs Mikey and he doesn’t even sound frustrated, just honest.

“I know,” says Gerard. “I’m sorry.”

Mikey reaches across the gear shift and takes Gerard’s hand. “I’m not.”

And maybe Mikey isn’t tired of taking care of Gerard, but Gerard sure is tired of making him.

*

On round three, the scarecrow is easy to find. Stealing his mom’s keys from her purse is harder, but he times it for just before she goes to bed, pushing the car out of the driveway in neutral and only starting it up once he’s sure the engine won’t wake her.

There’s a gate across the dirt road that leads to the pumpkin patch. Gerard leaves his car in a ditch off the highway and slips over it. The farm is dark and forbidding under nothing but starlight.

Because Gerard has spent far too much time thinking about this demon scarecrow over the last week, he’s not surprised to find it waiting for him when he steps into the right corridor.

“You’re back,” the scarecrow says, wiggling its fingers in a jaunty wave, “and at night. That’s ballsy.”

Gerard stops at the end of the corridor. It’s just instinct. His feet know what his heart is trying to push past. This is a bad idea. It’s only the memory of Mikey’s face that gives him what he needs to step closer.

“You’re a real asshole,” Gerard announces, thrilled when his voice doesn’t betray him.

“I never promised to be nice.”

It’s jarring to watch the scarecrow talk. It’s like watching really bad CGI. The jack-o-lantern head doesn’t have the right mouth for all the sounds it’s making, but it’s making those sounds perfectly clear. Gerard’s brain doesn’t want to allow it.

Gerard stops a yard away from the scarecrow’s pole. At least it seems attached to that. For all that it has wiggled its hands and loomed at him, it hasn’t moved an inch from its post.

“So what are you?” Gerard says, crossing his arms across his chest.

“I’m a scarecrow, idiot.”

“No. What _are_ you?” Gerard demands. “Are a demon?”

The scarecrow laughs. “I scared you that bad, huh?”

Yes, he had. The scarecrow had terrified him in fact. The thing is though, Gerard is almost always a little afraid. He has practice living in fear. And he has practice getting over it too. It just takes him the right sort of motivation, the right cause. He’d done it before getting sober. He can do it a second time if it means never seeing Mikey look at him with that kind of doubt again.

So Gerard pushes down his very real fear and steps closer. He makes a considering noise, before walking right up to the pole and kicking it. The pole vibrates and the scarecrow curses, but Gerard is watching its feet and the feet don’t move.

Gerard nods to himself, one question answered, and steps back again. “You’re stuck up there, aren’t you?”

For the first time, the jack-o-lantern’s smile seems less than bright. “You sure about that?” it asks.

Gerard just kicks around the hay at his feet for a moment. After a few seconds, he spots the glint of metal he’s been looking for and bends over to sweep it up.

The scarecrow’s snickers die when Gerard flicks his lost lighter’s flame on.

“Yes,” says Gerard. He walks closer again, flame held out in front of him. “I’ll repeat the question. What are you?”

“Fuck off.”

Gerard shakes his head, drawing closer. “Are you a demon? A ghost?”

The scarecrow draws back as much as it can as Gerard and the flame come closer. It doesn’t have real eyes, but the artist in Gerard knows an expression of terror when he sees one. Gerard has got it cornered. He knows he does.

“Neither. None. None of the above,” the scarecrow says quickly. “Fuck. Enough, asshole. Take that away. I’m Frank.”

“Frank,” repeats Gerard. His lighter sends shadows dancing across the pumpkin’s terrified face. Gerard’s had very few opportunities to feel powerful in his life, but he feels it now. He remembers being sixteen and held at gunpoint. He wonders if the man on the other end of the barrel had felt this thrill.

“It’s my fucking name,” the scarecrow groans, and the sound is not as sweet as Gerard had thought. “I’m not a fucking demon. I’m just Frank.”

Gerard lowers the lighter. The scarecrow sags against the pole. If it had to breathe, Gerard is sure its chest would be heaving. As it is, its jagged mouth presses together without a smile.

Gerard has to bite back his instinctive apology. He searches for his anger, and finds Mikey’s worried face. It’s not hard then to scowl.

“It wasn’t cool what you did today, Frank. It was pretty shit, in fact.”

The scarecrow’s pumpkins raises his head. It doesn’t say a word.

“My point is, we’re coming back tomorrow,” Gerard says. “You’re going to show him. You’re going to show him I’m not lying.”

The scarecrow crossed-out eyes stare blankly at him. Gerard’s whole body is tingling with the thrill of what he’s trying to do. He can’t read the thing’s eyes for even a hint of its thoughts.

“You’re wasting your time,” the scarecrow says finally. “He’s never going to believe you.”

“He will if you show him,” Gerard returns.

“Maybe.” The scarecrow’s head tilts, a motion far too organic for Gerard’s likes. It stares at Gerard for several long moments. “You could just take me with you. Tonight. You could show him tonight.”

“And let you off that pole? I’m not a fucking idiot.”

Gerard snaps shut his lighter, drenching the corridor back into darkness. Through the air of black he raises his hand and promises.

“Tomorrow. Don’t go anywhere.”

*

“No, Gerard.”

“Just trust me on this one, Mikey. I can prove it this time.”

“I thought we were over this,” Mikey says, sighing heavily. “It was just a prank, Gee.”

“It wasn’t though. Come on. Just one more time. I promise it’ll be worth it.”

“…This is a bad idea.”

*

Mikey’s eyes burn as they get out of the car. He insisted on driving, even though Gerard got his license back weeks ago. That’s how Gerard knows despite everything Mikey says, Gerard is doing the right thing bringing him out here again.

It’s a weekday, just days before Halloween, and it’s close to dusk. The pumpkin patch is buzzing away with tourists. Gerard and Mikey ignore all of it and go marching towards the maze.

This time, Gerard knows exactly where he’s going. Just like before, the noise drops when they approach the right turn. Gerard can feel Mikey following stiffly behind him and breathes in deep before he rounds the last corner.

As ever, Frank hangs at the end of it. Gerard knows he’s been spotted even though the scarecrow doesn’t move. He just hopes he won’t have to pull the same stunt he used last time to get Frank to talk in front of Mikey.

“His name is Frank,” Gerard says, pushing down his nerves and striding forward with more confidence than he feels.

“You _named_ it?” Mikey asks, trailing reluctantly after Gerard in a pure role reversal from last time. Mikey’s eyes narrow on Gerard. “Gee, what the fuck? This really isn’t funny anymore.”

“He’s going to talk this time,” Gerard says, ignoring all that. He gets within a few feet of Frank and looks up at him pointedly. “Aren’t you, Frank?”

“Gee—“

“Just watch, Mikey.”

“Gerard, seriously—“

“No, Mikey. I’m serious. Just watch.”

Gerard doesn’t take his eyes off of Frank. He doesn’t know how Mikey can’t feel it, the way the scarecrow’s sentience floods through this corridor in a hair-raising awareness. Gerard isn’t imaging the dullness to the scarecrow’s smile. It reads more like a grimace than anything.

Several long seconds pass in which Gerard knows he has Frank’s attention and yet Frank _still_ doesn’t move. Finally, Gerard gets fed up. He puts his hand to his pocket where he’s placed his lighter, but he doesn’t even get it out before Frank is twitching back, skeleton hands curling into fists at the end of the pole.

The jack o’lantern mouth splits. The scarecrow speaks. “Fine. What do you want, asshole?”

“ _Holy_ _shit!_ ”

Mikey jumps back, falling on his ass with a yelp. He pushes himself backward, eyes locked on the scarecrow, mouth hanging open.

Gerard feels a flare of vindication. He leaves his lighter in his pocket, stepping up and grinning slightly as he pulls Mikey back to his feet. “This is Frank,” he repeats, gesturing as Mikey’s face falls into one of gaping disbelief. “He can talk and stuff.”

Mikey paws at his arm, not taking his eyes off the scarecrow. “Gerard. Gerard, that fucking scarecrow is talking.”

“Yeah.” Gerard turns back to Frank. Somehow some of his more pressing anger ebbs now that he has his proof. It feels almost like they’re in on it together, which is wrong and stupid. He shakes his head. “I told you he could move.”

“I’m right here, fucker,” Frank mutters, but it sounds oddly subdued, like if people aren’t shitting themselves in terror he’d rather not speak at all. Too bad.

Behind Gerard’s shoulder, Mikey is quiet for a long moment. Gerard looks back at him in concern, but Mikey’s face is inscrutable.

“Mikey?”

“Sorry. Sorry. It’s just—what the actual fuck, Gee?”

“I know,” says Gerard, relieved to be back on the same page. “I told you it was creepy.”

“It’s _alive_ ,” Mikey breathes. “What the fuck? How the fuck is it doing that?”

“Again,” cuts in Frank. “I’m right here.”

Mikey jerks, eyes jumping back up to Frank. The scarecrow isn’t smiling at all now. It’s pulled back on the pole, shoulders raised, knees bent, looking like it’s trying to curl or move but can’t. It reminds Gerard suddenly of one of those frogs in biology pinned open for study. He looks away.

“He isn’t a demon,” Gerard says, seeing the nervous way Mikey is staring. “I asked.”

“It could be lying,” Mikey says, still not letting go of Gerard’s sleeve even as he seems to gather up his courage and leans in for another closer look.

“It has a name,” adds Frank pointedly. “Goddamn you fuckers are rude.”

“Okay. Wow,” says Mikey, leaning back again. The terror in his face is slipping away into something that looks more dazed than anything. “That is really _really_ fucking trippy.”

“I _told_ you,” Gerard says, smug.

Mikey just nods. “So what do you want to do?”

“Do?”

“You know—“ Mikey shrugs his chin towards Frank, shifting. “What do you want to do with it?”

“With it?” repeats Gerard, and he’s not the only one.

The scarecrow squawks, rocking on its pole while its jack o’lantern face twists into a frown. “You’re not doing anything with me, bud.”

“We can’t just leave it here,” says Mikey, speaking directly to Gerard now and ignoring the scarecrow entirely. “What if attacks a kid?”

“There’s the pole,” Gerard points out. “I checked that. He can’t move.”

“Are you sure about that though?” Mikey insists. “Are you _really_ sure?”

Gerard glances back up at Frank, who is leaning away from both of them just he’d leaned away from Gerard’s lighter last night. The sight makes Gerard’s stomach twist sourly. He feels for one outrageous second almost guilty.

“I think we should just leave him alone,” Gerard says, turning back to Mikey to get rid of the feeling. “He’s been up here for at least a month. If he was going to do something, he would have.”

Mikey seems to ponder this seriously. “I guess,” he relents. “You don’t want to…move it? We could maybe get it out of the maze at least.”

“Right now?” Gerard asks. “In the middle of the day? This place is crawling with people.”

“I guess not,” Mikey admits. “I just—I don’t know. This is seriously freaky.”

Gerard understands. “I promise. Frank isn’t going anywhere.”

The promise seems to do the trick, just like Gerard hoped it would. Mikey’s shoulders visibly drop. He finally lets go of Gerard’s sleeve, taking a few shuffling steps backwards. He glances only once more at Frank, before shivering. “Okay. Yeah, okay. I’m done. Let’s get out of here.”

“Yeah,” says Gerard, beginning to follow. Mikey needs no more encouragement than that, turning and scurrying out of the corridor without once looking back. Gerard makes to follow, when he hears a creak of the pole behind him.

When he turns back around, for the first time Frank isn’t looking at him. It makes Gerard stop for a second. The scarecrow’s head is pointed towards the ground, its shoulders, if possible, are slumped. It looks less like a menacing evil scarecrow and more like a pile of nothing but hay and empty clothing. Hollow.

Gerard thinks about saying something then. What he isn’t sure. But the moment passes as quickly as it comes. Gerard pulls his jacket tighter around his shoulders, stuffs his hands in his pockets and around his lighter and chip, and doesn’t look back.

*

Mikey drags him to a show later that night, blooming bright with life as soon as they get back into the city. Their apparent brush with the supernatural has left Mikey brimming with nervous energy and Gerard isn’t surprised when they get to the club to see Mikey immediately peel off to find Pete.

Part of him takes it as a good sign. There was a time, not to long ago, Mikey wouldn’t have let him within three blocks of a place like this. Now, Gerard finds the chip in his pocket, then his lighter, and marches himself towards the back wall.

The shitty band on stage is even shittier than Gerard was promised, but it doesn’t really matter. Gerard hasn’t been able to brave the pit since he was downing tequila shots like water. Even then that sort of public embarrassment was never his best friend. Spotting Mikey’s pale feathered head bobbing in and out of the crush, he wants to feel relaxed. He did what he meant to do and got Mikey to believe him.

It doesn’t explain why he feels so shitty now.

He steps out of the club and lets the door shut on the pounding music. The curb outside is crowded with smokers and Gerard wants to be one of them, pulling out his pack and lighting up.

He stares down at his palm as he does. There’s still a pink spot dead in the center, where his lighter had burned him. Gerard doesn’t know how Frank did it. He never did anything else like it again.

And what kind of a name was Frank anyway? It’s the name that sits like a boil on the back of Gerard’s brain. How did the scarecrow get it? Did he name himself? Or does someone else know about him and give it to him?

Gerard thinks about that. Thinks about the idea of someone knowing about Frank and naming him and still posing him like a tourist attraction in the middle of some dinky corn maze. It just doesn’t make sense.

When Mikey finds him half a pack later, the October air has bitten into his cheeks but his tumulus thoughts are no less hot. Mikey is practically steaming as he steps outside. Pete trails along after him with a hand down Mikey’s back pocket.

“There you are.” Mikey smirks as he turns to Pete. He’s pink enough in the face that he’s definitely tipsy. The way he leans into Pete is another blaring clue. “I told you he didn’t leave yet.”

“And I told you I didn’t see him inside.” Pete nods at Gerard. “Sup, Gerard? You good?”

Gerard doesn’t answer. He flicks his cigarette to the ground and grinds it under his heal. “You done, Mikes?”

“No,” grumbles Mikey, leaning hard on Pete.

“Oh, trust me. He’s done,” answers Pete. He lifts a hand, dangling out Mikey’s car keys. “Guess who’s driving.”

Gerard frowns. “I can take him. I’ve got my license back.”

“I know,” says Pete, shifting Mikey as Mikey’s limbs seem to sprout extra fingers to cling to him, “But he asked, you know?”

The thing is, Gerard doesn’t like Pete much. He thinks he’s loud and generally annoying and doesn’t know when to quit it. It’s like he appeared one day when Gerard wasn’t looking and hasn’t stopped since. The problem is, none of that matters in moments like these, when Gerard catches the way Pete looks at Mikey with no pretense or pomp. It’s the same way Gerard knows he must look when he’s taking care of his little brother. All love, no questions asked.

They stumble back towards Mikey’s car and Pete drives them both back to Gerard’s parents’ house. Gerard isn’t really surprised when Pete and Mikey follow him inside, even though Mikey has his own apartment like a real adult.

“You sure you’re good, man?” Pete asks when they come through the door and Mikey stumbles towards the shower.

Gerard glances at him. They don’t usually talk much. “Yeah. I’m fine. Why?”

Pete shrugs, but he’s got this steeliness to his eyes that’s taken over his usual impish glimmer. “I dunno. Mikey was talking some crazy shit back at the club. Says you were going through something.”

Gerard shakes his head. “I’m fine.”

Pete just looks at him. It takes Gerard a moment to realize Pete is looking for marks of intoxication, but Gerard isn’t drunk or high, he’s just sort of itchy under his skin. Pete must know the difference, because he nods. Some of his familiar playfulness trickles back into his smile, like he’d been worried.

“Alright, man. I was just asking. Good night.”

Pete turns to go. Gerard wonders if he’s going to go join Mikey in the shower, then shakes his head again. He doesn’t want to know.

“Hey, Pete.”

Pete pauses in the doorway, turning back around. “Thanks.”

Pete bobs his head. “Yeah, man. It’s cool.”

“No, I mean.” Gerard fidgets, pulling his hands down over his sleeves. He shakes his head again, before looking back up. “Thanks for being there for him. When I wasn’t.”

Pete looks at him for a long moment. Then, his shoulders relax. “You came back, man,” he says. “That’s what matters.”

Gerard thinks about that for a long time before he falls asleep.

*

He thinks about it next day too, when he wakes up, and all throughout the evening.

He waves of Mikey’s offer to go out dancing. He waves off dinner from his mom. He’s feeling sick and he’s not entirely sure why, except that’s a lie. He knows exactly what this feeling is.

He does drag himself off to his meetings. One in the morning at the local park with donuts, one in the church downtown with coffee.

He gets up and admits his guilt and his sins and sometimes that makes him feel clean and sometimes it doesn’t. Today, he leaves the church still dirty. He looks around the church before he goes and wonders how many people have made it back and how many are like him, still stuck somewhere between.

He sleeps on it for two more days and then its the day before Halloween. Gerard has a feeling like this is the end and he’s not sure why. He sits down and thinks about calling Mikey, but he doesn’t. He thinks about going upstairs to his parents, but he doesn’t do the either.

What he does do is he does glance at the clock and see time ticking on towards nightfall.

What he does do is shake his head and walk upstairs and asks his mom to borrow her keys.

*

Frank doesn’t pretend not to see him when Gerard walks in. It’s night and the maze is dark around them. Somehow, the stars are just enough for Gerard to make out the tired way Frank hangs from his pole.

“Come back with more friends?”

Gerard stops at the end of the corridor, taking his hands out of his pockets and spreading them. “It’s just me.”

“Yeah?” Frank snorts, but the sound is small. “Well that’s fucking boring. What do you want, Gee?”

“What?”

“What what?”

“No,” says Gerard. “What did you call me?”

The scarecrow grunts, barely raising his head. If Gerard had to guess, he’d say Frank looks almost embarrassed. “That’s what your friend called you. Mikey right? He called you Gee.”

“Short for Gerard. And Mikey’s my brother, not my friend. That’s not—“ Gerard shakes his head. “Just my friends call me Gee.”

“Oh.” Frank’s head falls again. “Fine. Whatever. You’re the rude fuck who never introduced yourself.”

“I thought you were a demon,” Gerard defends, stepping closer.

Frank snorts. “Not this again.”

“You’re hurt,” Gerard realizes suddenly.

“What?”

In the dim light of the moon, Gerard can still make out the change in his jack o’lantern smile. The pumpkin is wilted. Once smooth orange flesh appears soft and bruised, with nicks birds have pecked out of Frank’s skin. Gerard can even smell the sweet scent of rot when he draws closer. Frank, at least the head of him, is in decay.

“You’re dying,” Gerard realizes, and his mouth goes dry.

Despite everything, Frank’s jack o’lantern face tilts into a smile. “Rude.”

“What’s happening?” Gerard asks, coming even closer. “How are you dying?”

Frank shrugs. “Does it matter? I was never really alive.”

This is such a reversal of what Frank said the first time Gerard ever met him that Gerard draws up short. He squints up at the scarecrow. “What happened to being a real boy?”

“I don’t know, man,” Frank says and it isn’t just to Gerard’s ears that he sounds tired. “Guess the magic wore off.”

Gerard finally gets close enough to touch him, not that he does. He looks skinnier, like the hay bungled up under his jacket has been deflated. The only thing still fully stuffed are his gloves, whichhang limp at the end of his cross-pole.

“I didn’t think you could die,” Gerard says.

“Yeah, well.” Frank’s shoulders rise in a fatigued shrug. “Neither did I.”

Gerard stares at him. He realizes then that this is it. This spot in his maze must be all Frank’s ever known. Gerard wonders if Frank ever talked to anyone else. If anyone else ever came back to visit again like he did. If anyone other than Gerard went back to prove they weren’t crazy.

He thinks of the days he’s blacked out of his memory. He thinks of the times he’s woken up on the floor of some bathroom somewhere not knowing where or even sometimes who he is. He thinks of his last trip to the hospital, when he’d woken up in a bed with an empty stomach and a body that hadn’t felt like his, fingers stiff and clumsy. He thinks of what he would have done if he had turned his head and Mikey hadn’t been there.

“I think I can get you down,” Gerard says.

Frank’s head whips up. His crossed-out eyes are wide. “What?”

“Do you think you can walk?” Gerard asks, stepping around to get a good look at the pole. There’s one skinny stick running through the sleeves of Frank’s jacket and another studier one holding him upright. Gerard has seen Frank’s hands move at least.

“Walk?” Frank repeats. He draws back when Gerard steps onto a hay bale to get some height, and jumps when Gerard touches the pole pocking out of his sleeve. “What the fuck?”

“That’s what you wanted, right?” Gerard asks. “You asked to come with me the first time I came back. You didn’t even like me and you wanted to come with me.”

“I—“ Frank’s head is twisted around, staring at Gerard and the hand on his sleeve. “I—yes?”

“Yeah,” says Gerard. “Okay.”

He takes hold of the pole then and without thinking too hard about it, pulls it out. Frank’s far arm drops loose and limp first. Frank and he both stare at it.

Then, Frank’s fingers wiggle. Slowly, Frank raises his freed arm and brings his gloved hand to his face.

In the next second, he’s turn back, gaping at Gerard. “Now. Now. Get it out! Do it now!”

Gerard listens to him. He yanks the pole the rest of the way out and tosses it aside. Almost the next second, Frank is staring at both of his arms in front of his face with a look like he can’t quite believe it.

“I can move,” Frank says, bending his arms experimentally. “What the fuck.”

Gerard studies the pole Frank is posted on with a grim determination. “Yeah. Let’s see if the rest of you works too.”

It’s harder, lifting Frank’s body off of the second pole. The scarecrow isn’t heavy at all, but the movement is awkward. Gerard doesn’t want to grab onto Frank’s head, but there’s no real solid parts to grab otherwise. He’s worried about accidentally just ripping him apart.

Eventually though, he manages it. He has to tip the pole over first and then drag Frank off by his jacket, but soon they’re both on the ground and the pole is lying three feet away where Frank is glaring at it.

Frank has shoes and pants but they were obviously make as an after thought. If his jacket is deflated, his legs are barely stuffed. Frank manages to push his torso up and sit with his hands propped out, but his legs barely twitch.

Frank’s head turns to Gerard. “Why are you doing this?”

Gerard looks back at him. It doesn’t make sense to see human expressions in a jack o’lanterns face, but he does. Frank looks elated and confused and almost a little bit scared. Gerard can relate.

“You asked for help,” Gerard says. “I didn’t realize it, but you did. And I can help so I am.”

“Why?” demands Frank, smile flat.

It feels honest when Gerard says, “I’m tired of always being the one asking.”

Gerard gets to his feet. He leans down and offers his hand. Frank stares at him a long moment before slowly grasping it.

Gerard shivers. It’s not like holding onto a real person. There’s no heat and Frank’s glove is soft and clearly made of hay. Their fingers curl around and grip each other just the same.

“Ready?” Gerard asks.

Frank looks like he wants to smiles but can’t quite make it. He nods. “Fuck it. Pull me up already, man.”

Gerard grins and does. He’s almost expecting the movement to pull Frank’s hand from his arm, but by whatever force has brought Frank to life, it keeps him together. Frank’s legs buckle as soon as he gets somewhat vertical, but Gerard is already there. He doesn’t even think about it before he’s ducking under Frank’s arm and holding him by the shoulders.

They walk—well, Gerard walks, Frank mostly clings and stumbles—a few feet forward. It’s pretty obvious Frank’s feet won’t support him. Gerard’s not entirely sure how his head is even staying on to be honest.

But it doesn’t seem to matter to Frank, who takes those first fumbling steps and then hangs down his head and starts laughing.

“I can’t believe it,” Frank gasps, breathless and beaming. “I’m walking. Fuck it. Fuck. I’m fucking walking.”

His excitement is infectious. Gerard grins back and doesn’t let himself think or worry or plan.

He just says, “You ready to get out of here?”

Frank’s jack o’lantern smile grins back. “Fuck yeah.”

*

They drive with the windows down, bathing in the cold air. Frank gapes when Gerard turns the radio on, mouth forming an almost comical perfect circle.

“What _is_ this?”

And Gerard realizes Frank’s never heard music before. That Frank doesn’t know anything. Not really. Except that then, just as Gerard about to open his mouth to explain, Frank’s head starts to sway.

“Wait. Wait, I think I _know_ this.”

Gerard glances from the tape deck to Frank and back again. “You know the Ramones?”

“Yeah, I—“ Frank shakes his head. The pumpkin is soggy and leaves streaks of juice against the headrest, but Gerard doesn’t care. “It’s fuzzy. But it’s like. It feels like my name.”

“Your name?”

“Yeah. I dunno. It’s like, something I just know, you know?”

Gerard just stares at him, because he doesn’t. He looks at the collection of clothing that puts Frank together—the converse shoes, the jean jacket, the skeleton gloves. He looks at them and he thinks—yeah, these items go together. The person who would have worn this outfit would have known.

“What else do you know?” Gerard asks and he turns the car away from the city, away from the pumpkin patch—out into the country night where their little car cuts through the quiet world like knife. 

Frank tells him.

*

The scarecrow that is Frank woke up one morning surrounded by corn.

He knew it was corn, even though he’d never eaten it before. He knew what it mean to eat, even though he’d would never do it.

He knew his name was Frank and he knew he could talk and he knew that he was stuck.

Frank says he knew a lot of things from that first moment.

He knew that the way the farmer’s kid had run away from him when Frank had asked where he was was fear. He knew he kept on seeing that same look whenever he tried again, with the kids that wandered into the maze and ran screaming out of it, and that he didn’t like it.

He knew apparently a whole bunch of curse words and that those came easy to him. Easy as breathing, which he still did, even though he also didn’t.

He knew he was around for a while before Gerard stumbled up to him and he knew that he didn’t stand assholes calling him names. He knew he had to fight back and so he did. He fought back until Gerard ran away, just like the rest of them.

One of the rare things Frank didn’t know, but had learned, was that no one came back once he scared them. No one except Gerard.

And Gerard knew then that Frank wasn’t alive at all, but very much dead.

And dying.

*

They listen to the Ramones and the Misfits and the Smiths and then Gerard in a dash of black humor puts on the Smashing Pumpkins and angles them towards home.

Frank hangs his head out the window even as they pull onto the freeway, and Gerard is just glad in that moment that it’s almost Halloween and no one seems to care.

When they pull up to Gerard’s house, he gets out of the car and helps Frank out of the car, ignoring the small pile of hay that’s fallen out of Frank and gathered on the floor. Frank’s feet basically drag on the ground as Gerard carries him towards the front door and fumbles for his keys.

Frank stares at the pumpkins on the porch lit with tiny tea lights and makes a face. “Morbid, dude.”

Gerard glances down and hurries to open the door fast, embarrassed.

Luckily, it’s late enough at night that his parents are asleep. Gerard drags Frank down into the basement and props him up on the sofa there. He ignores the fact that Frank is basically slouched all the way down, head propped up by the cushions rather than his shoulders.

“Thanks,” says Frank, once Gerard has put in a movie and they’re both settled in.

Gerard glances at him. Even in the dim light of the television Gerard can see how wilted Frank’s become. He feels guilt eat away at him.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get you earlier,” says Gerard.

Frank’s head doesn’t turn. Gerard’s not sure he can do that anymore, but he can feel Frank’s attention on him, just like he always has.

“Why?” asks Frank. “You don’t owe me anything. We barely know each other.”

“I know,” says Gerard. “I’m just sorry.”

“It’s cool, dude,” says Frank and even though his body is breaking, his magic is running out, he still manages to grin and waggles his fingers. “I’ve got no strings on me, remember?”

Gerard smiles back.

*

In the morning, Gerard wakes up and Frank is gone. The scarecrow is still there and its jack o’lantern head, but Frank is gone from it. The smile doesn’t shift as Gerard sits up, pushing his hair out of his face and blinking down at it. Frank had gone smiling at least.

He calls Mikey, who yells at him but shows up with both coffee and Pete. Mikey sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth at the sight of Frank when he comes down the stairs, but doesn’t say anything. They don’t explain anything to Pete, who begrudgingly takes a trash bag from upstairs and picks up the mushy head and all the wet and moldy straw. He grumbles about doing Gerard’s chores but still does it without really pushing for why and Gerard admits he’s going to have to like Pete after all this. He thinks maybe he needs to listen to Pete’s actions more than his words.

Gerard turns his back to it, glad to watch Mikey’s face and know he’s not the only one feeling sick.

“I don’t get it,” says Mikey, as the two of them sit at the kitchen table upstairs and let Pete do the dirty work. “Why’d you go back?”

“I don’t know, Mikey,” says Gerard. “He had a name. I think he was real.”

“I believe you, you know,” says Mikey and their knees knock under the table. “I know he was real. You didn’t have to prove anything else to me.”

Gerard shakes his head. “No. It wasn’t that. I think he was a real person. His name was Frank.”

Mikey smiles at him, but Gerard can tell he doesn’t quite get it. He never went back, the way Gerard did. There was nothing past that first scare for Mikey.

But there could have been.

That’s what nags on Gerard as they finish their coffee. There could have been more. More conversations. More meetings. Just…more.

When Pete comes back upstairs, he’s holding a black trash bag that is dripping slightly far away from his face. “Just when I think you Ways can’t stink it up anymore,” he jokes. It doesn’t land. Pete hurries out of the kitchen quickly and Gerard tries not to think of the scarecrow’s head rotting away in his parents’ garbage bin on the street. He thinks about Pete instead, and the way he’d come when Gerard had called even though they barely know each other.

“You know,” says Gerard, drawing Mikey’s eyes up from his cup. “I think I like him.”

Mikey blinks, then narrows his eyes at him. “You do? No, you don’t. You always hate the people I date.”

“I like him,” says Gerard, nodding to himself. “I do, Mikey. I like the way he looks at you.”

Mikey goes pink around his ears. “Fuck off.”

Gerard smiles at him and drinks his coffee. They both look up as Pete comes slamming back into the kitchen.

“Okay. That was nasty. You owe me, like, three drinks at the bar for that, Gee,” says Pete, and Gerard tries not start—both at the nickname and the easy way Pete talks about the bar. That’s never happened like that between them before.

“You’re coming out tonight, right?” Mikey adds, setting down his coffee and standing up to take Pete’s hand.

Gerard gives a waffling shrug.

Mikey frowns at him. “Yeah. No. You’re coming out tonight. It’s Halloween, Gee. Don’t spend it alone.”

“I’ve got Mom and Dad,” Gerard says.

“Okay,” revises Mikey. ‘Don’t spend it being _lame_.”

Gerard laughs. He gets up and hugs his brother and then pulls Pete in for one as well. He thinks of the lighter in his back pocket and the chip in his other. He thinks maybe he wants more too. He wants to come back, to _be_ back, fully.

*

Frank’s clothes are all laid out for him when he wants back downstairs. Gerard doesn’t know how Pete knew, but there they are.

Gerard finishes the movie he’d put on the night before and slept through, then he gets up and says hello to his parents and helps them fill the candy bowl by the door.

When it’s time to go out, he asks his mom for her keys and feels a thrill when she passes them over without comment, even when he mentions where he is going. The chip in his pocket feels like a coin for Charon, carrying him back from the land of the dead.

In the basement, he stands in front of his closet but doesn’t take his clothes out. He had vague thoughts about a costume, but that’s not where his attention turns.

He puts on the jean jacket without really thinking about it. It’s dirty and there are still bits of hay stuck inside, but it fits well enough. The shoes fit too, and the pants.

Gerard doesn’t really think about it when he steps out wearing a dead man’s clothes and starts the engine to the car. The Smashing Pumpkins begin to play and Gerard tilts the rear view window until he can see his own eyes in the reflection.

He fits into Frank’s clothes. They look like something Gerard would wear. They look like the clothes of someone Gerard would want to know.

He has his lighter and his chip in the front pockets of Frank’s jacket. He hopes Frank won’t be offended.

He pulls on Frank’s gloves.

“Happy birthday, Frank,” Gerard says and he's not sure how he knows, but he knows.

He stares at himself in the mirror and cackles.


End file.
